


That York Girl

by politicalmedievalistnerd



Series: Modern Verse [2]
Category: 15th Century CE RPF, 16th Century CE RPF, The Cousins' War Series - Philippa Gregory, The White Princess (TV), The White Queen (TV)
Genre: 2000s, 2010s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - 2000s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Broken Engagement, Casual Sex, Cheating, Child Death, Depression, Drunk kiss, F/M, Forbidden Love, Forced Marriage, Hook-Up, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Modern Era, Modern Royalty, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Smoking, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-27 06:13:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10803414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmedievalistnerd/pseuds/politicalmedievalistnerd
Summary: Elizabeth, Elizabeth; everyone knows her, loves her, adores her. Cecily, Cecily; she's just that york girl, the other one.





	1. enter the cage

**2001**

“That York girl’s going places, don’t you think?”   
“The eldest one? Elizabeth? Her uncle favours her, I’d agree.”

“No, no, the younger one, slightly.”   
“Cassie…?”   
“No, no, Cecily.”   
“Cecily.”   
“Cecily York.” She liked to cut in, like that, with a toss of her gold hair. People talked all the time. It was a way of her to get even. “You were saying?”

“Oh-”

“-my, sorry, my-”

“-you’ve really-”

“-i liked it when-”   
“-Elizabeth-”

“-oh, your sister-”

“-the elder one-”

“-you’re going places, aren’t you?”

“-your sister-”

“-so helpful-”

“-she’s just-”

“-lucky girl, you with your sister-”

 

_ Cecily  _ was going places because Elizabeth was.  _ Elizabeth  _ got married and bore beautiful children and  _ Cecily  _ was so lucky for it, so grateful for it. Who wouldn’t just  _ adore  _ Ralph Scrope, another of her father’s seedy drinking friends who never managed to score? Ralph Scrope, who so  _ meekly  _ bought her towels and took her out to dinner, Ralph Scrope who thought it was perfectly acceptable to get himself engaged to an  _ eighteen year old.  _ When the paparazzi broke in, hounding Cecily’s  _ mother  _ or  _ elder sister  _ they found her in the shower and she’d gone legal two days ago, so why not post the pictures everywhere? What a tabloid celebrity, they said. What a bitch, what a slut, why was she in the  _ shower  _ when she was  _ at home?  _ Didn’t she know the paparazzi could  _ break in  _ whenever they wanted? Silly little girl.

 

A York princess didn’t complain when her husband reeked of alcohol or made out with other girls, and she wasn’t supposed to let the cheating get to her but she  _ did,  _ she did she did she did. Cecily wasn’t the good princess, she wasn’t her sister Elizabeth, more a queen than a princess, just like their mother, their goddamned fucking mother.

 

**2002**

“They’d  _ love  _ to be babysat by their aunty!” And she has no, no, no idea how to take care of kids but her sister and her fucking husband are going to have a look at the costs of moving to Australia. So she’s dumped with Arthur, so mature, apparently, at three or four or whatever the fuck and Margot the little not-even-one-month baby and somehow she’s supposed to take care of these kids but she doesn’t have a single itty bitty  _ clue  _ on how she’s supposed to do that. She sets Arthur up in front of the telly and leaves Margot in that stupid bouncer that Elizabeth spent a fortune on and goes and makes a cup of coffee, as if that’ll help. It doesn’t when Margot bursts into big fat wails and it all gets too much for Arthur and she finds him thirty minutes later hiding under the guest bed, and  _ goddammit  _ who would want kids and then Ralph gets home and she’s had enough, she’s tired and Elizabeth only picked up the kids all of twenty minutes ago and  _ go away! Go away go away go away!  _ But he kisses her neck and her father  _ loved  _ this guy, they probably fucked all their whores together and Cecily feels sick thinking about it, her stomach is breaking through her throat and then and then -

 

There’s a knock at the door.

 

Margot left her dummy here and Henry’s the schmuck that got sent back to get it and she flees to the door quick enough, panting and ushering her brother-in-law inside.

“Cecily,” he asks, in his ever uncertain voice, “you don’t look well.”

For once it’s not a compliment or a question or something she has to reply to; her  _ fucking  _ sisters always ask her things and her mother whirls suggestions at her and conversations become a minefield. Her mother says Henry has always lacked a certain subtlety and  _ thank fucking god  _ for Henry Tudor, then, because the court was beautiful and dazzling and so fucking confusing. There’s too much shit in her head and  _ lovely  _ Mr Scrope waltzes up behind her and his hand is on her waist, too close for comfort and oh my god she can’t breathe. 

 

“Show me where the children were, please, Cecily? I believe you weren’t home all day, Ralph,” he nods at her fiance and steers her away from him, and her eyes are burning and she shudders and Henry wraps an arm around her. 

 

“Why are you engaged to him?” He asks flatly and she shakes and shakes and shakes and pushes him away, stumbling, sight blinded with tears. 

“My Uncle Richard wanted it,” she breathes, voice hitching, trying not to cry girls don’t cry girls like her Plantagenet girls  _ they don’t cry!  _ Elizabeth never cried when their Uncle Richard told her to let Cecily have a room to herself and that she could go sleep in the same room as Uncle Richard and Aunt Anne, Elizabeth didn’t cry when their father died or when their brothers disappeared, Elizabeth never cried. Why couldn’t Cecily be more like her sister, her darling elder sister? Her uncle is in his grave five years and yet Ralph  _ fucking  _ Scrope still came and proposed to her, because Richard pointed her out when she was thirteen  _ thirteen thirteen!  _

 

“You look so unhappy,” Henry says, scooping up the slobbery dummy in his calloused hands. “Elizabeth would hate to see you unhappy. Ralph Scrope is a nobody besides. You deserve better.”   
And they lock eyes for just a heartbeat, just one heartbeat, and then he’s brushing her aside and is gone gone gone.  But he doesn’t forget, and Cecily sits at their table for Christmas, for once enjoying the battle of wits between her own mother and her godmother, Mrs Beaufort, and Ralph Scrope has disappeared. Two weeks is all she needed.

 

**2003**

John Welles is even older than Ralph Scrope had been but she’s showered in gifts and he doesn’t pay much mind to her other than that. He turns forty and she, the twenty-one year old, claps, lights the candles as her family gathers round her new fiance. Her mother coughs very hard in a way that makes the sound of  _ ‘sugar daddy’  _  but John only touches her when she wants and that’s more than she can say for most of the boys around these days. John even buys her the newest Harry Potter book without a word of complaint that it’s ‘childish’ and it gives her something else, another way to forget. 

 

And Henry. Elizabeth calls and visits every other day and Henry sometimes makes it to Sunday dinners, full of praise for Australia and desires to move there, to see what it’s like, to base his business there. Over dinner, straight out he asks Cecily to go check it out and pays her and her new fiance’s flights. They leave in September and she is surprised to find that the heat doesn’t suffocate her half as much as her family did, and she sends back Henry a postcard and he replies with a photo of Arthur and Margot in the ugliest bathing suits she’s ever seen, and she laughs herself silly on the couch to the point that John comes and strokes her hair to ensure she’s alright. 

 

And then, the Tudors come for Christmas, another Christmas, and her wedding, and Arthur writes letters to ‘Mr. Snow’ asking him to come to Australia and Margot just cries and cries and cries because of the heat. Elizabeth gets headaches and retires to bed too early, and John follows soon after, complaining of ‘creaking bones’, which they all laugh about, but god, isn’t he middle aged? So it’s just Cecily and Henry left on Christmas night and Cecily has too many bottles of alcohol in the fridge and they break open one after another after another. Henry holds his liquor quite well but Cecily never has, and she giggles and giggles and giggles and has urges to spill out all the secrets she knows, and so she tells him about how she used to go streaking on set when she was two or three and her sister Elizabeth wouldn’t talk to her all day because she was a ‘big girl’ and that was her ‘big break’.And then the sour words come off her tongue and she tells Henry the story of when she met Ralph Scrope at a club when she was sixteen, sneaking in underage and how much she cried that night, and she nearly cries again now until Henry tells her to lay down and she does, and he plaits her hair with clumsy fingers.

 

“Who taught you?” She asks, but it’s unnecessary because it’s Elizabeth’s technique, of course, and he seems to know that she knows because he doesn’t answer, and instead tells her stories of his life in France when he travelled with his uncle, and how he had no fortune and no name and no company and often no stable job, and how when Richard died everything changed. Everything changed for everyone but Cecily.

 

Some of these tales are lewd enough to coax a giggle out of her and laugh she does, louder and louder until Henry urges her to be quiet and the alcohol has well taken its’ toll on her and without thinking she kisses him, just once without thinking and his lips are cold and frozen and she wants to cry.

 

“C’mon now,” he says softly, scooping her up. “You’re overtired.” She doesn’t protest when he tucks her into bed like she’s a little kid again but she’s sad when he leaves. And for the rest of that year, the week or so, her lips tingle every time she looks at him but he is utterly lost in his wife. Her sister, her  _ sister  _ and she cannot take him from her and she’s a newlywed anyway, her and John Welles married two weeks ago. 

 

**2004**

They’re in London for the birth, of course, because Elizabeth is giving Henry another baby and that’s the kind of thing sisters don’t let other sisters do alone, and Cecily turns up two weeks before Elizabeth is due. The cold takes her by surprise because even in summer, everything in England is so fucking freezing compared to Australia, and it’s odd how her body doesn’t recognise her old home. On the 27th of June Elizabeth goes into labour and Cecily is supposed to be at home, babysitting Arthur and Margot. Arthur makes a card for the new baby and little Margot, not quite two, sulks and skulks and screams for her mother. At 1a.m, Anne Cromer, angel of a woman, arrives to handle the situation and  _ thank god the real babysitter is here  _ and immediately she heads to the alcohol store, and with a slide of money she gets the drinks into the maternity ward and sets a can down on the table next to Henry. He’s been shoved outside as Elizabeth screams and he’s not a happy camper, certainly not. He paces up and down and then catches sight of the can and rolls his eyes.

 

“Cecily, your sister doesn’t need a drink,” he sighs, and Cecily tosses her golden hair and tries to stifle a laugh, hands on hips.

“It’s for you,” she says, slipping down into an armchair. “Ease your nerves...and shit.”

He narrowed his eyes, but wrapped both hands around it and drank it - skulled it, really, until it was empty and crunched in his hands. 

“What is it with you and booze?” He asked, wringing his hands together. She pressed her lips down and gave him a ridiculous smile, shrugging.

“Diamonds are a much more expensive best friend,” was all Cecily answered. More bottles appeared from all kinds of places and Elizabeth laboured, and eventually her mother popped out and ushered the pair in, just as a baby’s shriek pierced the ward.

“Lungs,” Cecily said dryly. “Good thing, I reckon.” Her mother rolled her eyes and Henry rose an eyebrow. 

 

Weeks later it’s time for the christening, which her godmother insists is to be held to the ‘most extremely formal’ dress code and sure, Cecily listens (that woman is terrifying when crossed, honestly) but nothing was said about  _ make-up  _ and Margaret Beaufort nearly has a coronary when she sees the amount of eyeliner Cecily has painted on. 

“You look emo,” Anne pouts, looking as trashy as a well-raised sixteen year old could, pretending she hasn’’t had her thin pink scarf swapped for her grandmother’s old blue shawl. “That is  _ so not fetch.” _

“The fuck is ‘fetch’?” Cecily snaps when her godmother is, thankfully, fussing over Margot’s coat. 

“It’s from that new movie,” Catherine butts in. “Anne’s obsessed. She’s seen it twelve times already and it only came out a few days before Henry was born.”

 

And the christening is long, of course, and boring boring boring. But she is leaving two days later and so makes sure that the afterparty is something, even though by Elizabeth’s designation it’s all tea and biscuits but she mixes a shot of vodka in there somewhere and she’s drunk, again, she’s always drunk because it’s so sad that at twenty-two she can’t get drunk on life anymore and Henry takes her to the airport, and kisses her cheek as brother-in-laws do and bids her farewell, and she remembers her lips tingling and can’t sleep on the endless flight home.

 

**2005**

Pregnant, pregnant and she’s not sure if she wants it but she has to go along with it anyway, and old John Welles is beyond overjoyed and fusses over her like she’s the Queen of England (but that’s more Elizabeth than her, really - Elizabeth has always seemed to play the part of the princess, the Queen and Cecily’s just a lady-in-waiting. Maybe a countess, at most, and it’s surprising she remembers that that’s a thing, but hey, history class was mildly interesting. Viscountess, maybe, she’d be Viscountess Welles). Her sister and Henry are debating whether to move to Australia this year or next, and while they draw up five-year-plans Cecily goes into labour early and neither of them are there, but she names her daughter Beth anyway and gets on with life, because what else is there to do?

 

And then, in May when she’s nursing her baby still, Henry makes a visit on business, trying to figure out if he should set himself up in Sydney or Brisbane because he doesn’t like the look of Melbourne and everywhere else is too ‘isolated’, and Cecily lives in Brissy’s northern suburbs and he comes and stays with them. John trudges off to work every day but Henry only has occasional meetings and surprisingly, he’s a good help. Some days she gets up from her nap and stares at him in wonder, only for him to laugh and dismiss her. “I’m a father of three,” he says, actually chuckling and it’s such a mysterious sound but she loves it. He’s usually so solemn, so serious, so like his mother and she wonders if Elizabeth has changed him, maybe for the better. He fusses and frets over Cecily’s ‘horrible’ taxes and works like a soldier. She tries to confront him and he says he will do anything to make Elizabeth happy, and making Cecily happy does that. Sometimes she thinks  he’s lying, but she doesn’t argue. Nobody argues with Henry, she’s learnt that by now.

 

He’s there for a month and it’s June 7 and time to go and on his last night she takes him out partying, getting a kick out of seeing him so uncomfortable and out of his element until he’s downed five or six drinks and something seems to crawl back into him from long ago. 

“This is wilder than usual,” he says, for once slurring his words. She clings to a stool at the bar, laughing her arse off at his attempts at dancing. Eventually he seems to realise he’s become a mockery and stops, straightening up, actually fucking  _ blushing.  _ “Don’t you laugh at me,” he says defensively, but she slams her head against the table laughing so hard and she knows he doesn’t mean it. He downs another drink and does a dance that looks like it was spat out of the eighties - god, it  _ could  _ be considering his age - and Cecily actually wets herself, howling with laughter to the point that they have to be escorted out. Cameras go wild, with paparazzi scattered. The Bank of Dragons  _ is  _ a big company, and Cecily’s mother was an extremely famous actress, and Henry’s mother was one of the biggest politicians of all fucking time and  _ fuck it!  _ Her dad was a royal cousin and fuck him, fuck everyone who tried to tell her what to do cause nobody, nobody that night could stop Cecily York and Henry Tudor. They stumbled into a hotel and got a room by the merit of their name, and drunkenly vomited all over the floor, collapsing into the bed. 

 

“New mothers aren’t meant to do this,” she shrieked with mirth, clambering onto the bed, jumping up and down, listening to the mattress squeak. Henry shoved a pillow over his ears.

“Elizabeth will  _ kill  _ me if Mother doesn’t first,” Henry scowled, rubbing his face. 

“It’s - called-” she jumped on the bed even harder, “- a release - Henry!”

 

She tumbles down onto the bed beside him, gold hair fanning out, panting, and suddenly he’s kissing her and she’s kissing him and, fuck, she’s so drunk and can hardly pull her top off and she hasn’t even had sex with her  _ husband  _ since she had Beth and fuck, Beth - Elizabeth, her sister, this is her brother-in-law and oh my fuck-

“Elizabeth,” he groans, tugging his pants down and she almost screams, throwing her hands at his face, fuck fuck fuck what are they doing what were they about to  _ do?  _ He’s too drunk and he bursts into tears, and, awkwardly in just her bra and jeans, she wraps her arms around him and lets him sob, because the guilt is taking over her too and she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do. 

 

In the morning, she wakes at 11 to a phone ringing and ringing and ringing and it won’t stop and she answers, hoping  _ praying  _ that the room’s under her name.

“Is there a Mrs Cecily Welles here?”   
She breathes a sigh of relief. “Yes. What’s up?”

“This is Nurse Davis.”

“Nurse who?”

“This is about your mother, Mrs Elizabeth York.” And suddenly her head is spinning  _ way  _ too quickly and fuck, fuck,  _ fuck  _ what’s happened now? Her mother’s probably landed someone in hospital if they got too touchy on Catherine or Bridget and - goddamn.

“What about her?” Cecily asks, trying to maintain composure, but she’s already planning her flight to England to  _ throttle  _ anyone who has dared touch her family. She might not look formidable right now, standing in the middle of a trashed hotel room in her bra and jeans with her brother-in-law passed out on the couch, but there was more to Cecily than this, she knew there was.

“Your mother..I’m so sorry. She passed away.”

 

And the world that Cecily’s known since birth comes crashing down, falling harder than Rome ever did and she slides down against the bed until her arse hits the floor and she’s gasping, choking because her mother has outlived everything else that’s ever stood in her path and this  _ just isn’t right.  _ Bile reaches the air quicker than she could’ve imagined and she’s covered in her own vomit, for once knowing her mother won’t waggle her fingers and fix everything. Cecily slams down the phone and wraps her arms around her knees, pulling them up to her chest. She shuts her eyes but the wretched smell still takes over and she pukes again, so loudly that the bed stirs and Henry is awakening. She doesn’t worry about weeping in front of him and harsh salty tears stream down her cheeks and gather on her chin, a chin everyone said looked  _ just like her mother’s  _ and  _ fuck fuck fuck.  _

 

And later, later they sat in pools of their own vomit, crying for the woman they’d lost, and Henry’s lips stumbled over a joke he couldn’t quite pull off. “Always thought she’d like me more after I married Elizabeth, but I don’t think that was the case.” He laughed after it and Cecily furrowed her brows but left it alone, because god, god, her mother was dead.

 

And then, and then and then and then she couldn’t even make it to the funeral, she came down with illness and couldn’t make her flight and she bawled her eyes out to John, who patted her back whilst burping their little daughter and lied and told her it’d all be okay. Fucking liar.

 

**2006**

Elizabeth tells her that she  _ has  _ to go visit her brother, who lives out in the Hinterland somewhere but she does, Cecily does because  _ godfuckingdammit  _ her life has been a mess anyway, and a very sweaty Thomas Grey opens the door, greeting her with a, “what the fuck, Cece? I haven’t seen you in years. What’s the problem?” and he’s got a plethora of children, just as their mother would’ve wanted  _ their mother  _ and she invites herself inside for a cup of coffee, she really needs some coffee and Cecilia eyes her the whole time but scuttles out of the room eventually. 

 

“You didn’t go to our mother’s funeral,” but she didn’t either, hypocrite hypocrite but he probably doesn’t know that and he shakes his head, eyes too tired even for a father of so many and she can see his wince as the coffee scalds him. He’s old, kind of, nearly forty and there’s a thick layer of grey already, accompanied by a lined forehead and permanent bags. 

“Was there a place for me there?” he retorts, and his hands are shaking and she doubts doubts doubts it’s just from the caffeine, and she remembers her earliest memory of him when she was maybe three and he was seventeen, and he picked her up and carried her into bed, tucking her down by Elizabeth but then their father came in and he was shuffled a little to the side, eyes hurting but he said nothing and slipped out of the room. He’s always been Grey, Grey to the bone and the guilt starts to tingle from the tips of her fingers to her toes and she can’t breathe anymore. 

 

Cecilia is bouncing a child on her hip and re-enters the room and Cecily runs, she feels what it’s like to be an outcast for once, not second best but a fucking outcast and goddammit, she’s a York girl at heart and this isn’t right this isn’t right her father raised her to be in the spotlight. She scampers home until she’s in John’s arms and her little girl is starting to toddle. Over the year her steps get firmer, better, stronger and they pass around the idea of another, and Cecily loves and hates the idea simultaneously. She is prone to loathing her sisters but can’t imagine life without them and she lays down on the floor next to Beth.

 

“Do you want a sister, hm?” she asks, because she doesn’t know how better to ask. “Or a brother?” The night her brothers went missing was terrible. Her mother screamed and screamed and screamed and Elizabeth cried for the first time in forever and they shivered in the corner of that horrible motel because their boys were gone, gone gone gone and they’re one of the longest cold cases in the world and nobody knows where they are, what happened to them and the court case ended years ago because how were they ever meant to find them? Gone gone gone and gone and what if someone takes her children from her? She hugs Beth too tightly and lays on the floor, not crying determinedly not crying because York girls don’t cry. Because when Elizabeth walked out with their mother to talk to the world they picked up on her tears and used them like cannonballs to try to prove their mother’s neglect, shitty parenting skills and so Cecily never cries and hopes to teach her daughter not to either. This baby’s name might be Beth Welles but she is a York girl from her golden hair to her pretty pink shoes. With white roses embroidered on them, of course.

 

**2007**

The Tudors come back on another holiday, for the Aussie summer and Henry and Beth, there’s only a year between them but they scream and fight and so, while Cecily lets her daughter battle away, Elizabeth scoops Henry up and sits the pampered prince on her lap, looking ever so much the stern mother bear their mother always is.  _ Was.  _ Arthur’s seven, eight this year and he already has the typical russet Tudor mop and is doing oh-so-very well in his studies. Margot has a temper to match her little brother and raids the cupboards with a fiery ferocity, hunting out chocolate like a bloodhound does prey. And Henry, the elder one, is there too, and maybe that’s why Beth has to wait for a little sister, because there is something about watching Henry and Elizabeth that makes Cecily too sick to sleep with John that night. Stupid, yes, but she can’t help it, and no amount of fat tablets falling down her throat makes any difference. 

 

They’re cousins, their kids are  _ cousins  _ and that should be justification enough to get over it, but she remembers last time he was here and falling down against the bed, and for a few brief moments his fingers wrapped around her wrists and they were  _ kissing  _ and she shudders, she showers and showers and even bleaches her hair, turning it from the York gold to a pinky colour but really, she doesn’t want to dye her hair she just prays for chemical burns to cover her scalp and hopefully fry her brain into the right way of thinking. But she’s fine, it doesn’t burn too much and she throws up three or four times in one day, not in that way of morning sickness but just at repulsion of herself, and desperately Cecily tries to lose herself in the shittiest television shows she can find. Without her mother she’s getting little and less support and just before Henry leaves, she gets on her knees and begs and somehow finds herself owning the first Bank of Dragons in Australia, and  _ fuck  _ at least she was always good in math at school. The money is enough to let her drink herself into a stupor by night to forget the constant reminders of  _ him  _ by day. Eventually she focuses, gets herself knocked up with another baby and they tell her it’s to be a girl, and she’s meant to be happy happy happy but it doesn’t work, she has to stop drinking and instead she stares at the wall, wondering if her brothers are still alive, wondering what happened to them. She slips a documentary on about them - of course, there was a documentary about them, they were one of the biggest, most famous cold cases - and watches numbly. The conspiracies hurt. Her mother always called shit like this ‘slander’ but she can’t help but wonder if it’s real. They outline three main suspects - all of them too close to home. Her uncle Richard, Henry Stafford, friends with most of her family, and then there was Henry, Henry Tudor. Uncle Richard could’ve done it because everyone  _ fucking hates  _ Richard, and yes, yes, he was a creep and a weirdo but she doesn’t think he’s a killer, he was her  _ uncle  _ for fuck’s sake, he couldn’t be a killer. But they say he wanted the York fortune, the York estates, old estates and old money in England that he hardly had for any time before he died too, and then Elizabeth claimed them and gave them to nearly every family member who blinked at her. 

 

And, and - Cecily stops watching when it gets to Henry, because, no, no, no, it couldn’t be him, and she slams down the remote and skulks back into bed wrapping a silky robe around herself. It couldn’t be Henry. Maybe, maybe some things are better left unknown. But her brothers stare at her from a photograph on her dresser, in all their early nineties glory. Cecily was closest in age to Ed and the two have their arms around each other in the picture, she’s all of ten and he’s nine and little Richard is eight and it’s Christmas Eve, 1992. Uncle Richard was babysitting them and sent them down to the shops for lollies and they never ever came back and there’s been every kind of suspicion in the book and the tears are nearly blinding her, now, and she screams into her pillow, missing them, desperately missing her brothers.

 

Pregnant, pregnant, the test reads two lines and pink and positive, and John is overjoyed and Elizabeth talks for hours about the joys of having more than one child but it’s Henry’s quiet, short talk that makes her heart soar. “Your children are the only thing that’ll outlive you, that’ll carry on your legacy, and you, Cecily York, deserve a legacy as grand as a Princess’.” Because Elizabeth is his queen, yes, but she is a princess, Princess Cecily York and nobody can take that from her. The vivid dreams of pregnancy creep into her mind and she dreams that the Tudors are a family of royalty but she and Elizabeth are the truth, they have the true York blood and nobody, nothing can stop them. Another baby girl comes eventually and at the last minute Cecily calls her Anita - Beth and Anita for Elizabeth and Anne, her eldest sisters and she promises to never, ever let anyone harm them.

 

**2008**

Family, family, family.

 

In April, Henry and Elizabeth Tudor gracefully glide into town, into one of their big fat mansions, and purchased the Hampshire building in the city. They are the start of a great migration, as Anne and her fiancee follow, as Catherine follows, as even Maggie Pole and Eddie Clarence drag themselves halfway around the world. Elizabeth, ever gracious, gifts Maggie and her family Ludlow mansion, and Eddie stays with them. Only Bridget remains in England, sour little girl she is, though apparently she’s not doing so well. Catherine stays with Elizabeth and Henry, only sixteen, but Bridget won’t leave and gets packed off to a distant relative, sulking.  _ Family’s good when they do what you say,  _ Cecily takes from that, but nonetheless goes around every Sunday for the necessary ‘family lunches’, as Ricky Pole painstakingly learns how to use a barbeque.

 

It’s August and Anne’s getting married to Thomas Howard, who just recently took over his father’s job as the CEO of Howard Cruises and hey, it’s a bit of a money thing but Cecily’s in no place to judge her little sister, and instead happily agrees to be a bridesmaid, even when her daughters are slighted in favour of Margot to be the flower girl and little Henry’s the ring boy, and Anne beams and beams and beams until it looks like it hurts and Cecily sucks in her stomach, slimming herself down in the too-tight purple dress and pretending there aren’t tears in her eyes, because Anne has no father and no brothers to walk her down the aisle so frail Eddie Clarence walks her down the aisle, Eddie Clarence who  _ should  _ be Eddie York if their family wasn’t so so so  _ fucking  _ dramatic. Henry Tudor’s eyes are narrow and on Eddie the whole time, and Cecily feels sick because she’s so sick of all this  _ fucking  _ hatred. Henry narrows his eyes so much now that they start to look beady, and it’s harder and harder every day to see the blue in them. She misses that. She shouldn’t.

 

It’s September and everything is fine, fine, happy and dandy and she takes her two little girls to one of the bigger shopping centres, carrying Anita and letting Beth toddle across the street, because she’s  _ ‘thwee’  _ now, she says in her best big girl voice, and at one point Beth lets go of her hand and Cecily starts scolding her but the little girl is gone, gone, gone, like her brothers and Cecily is screaming and screaming and screaming. But then, Beth is there, but not by her side it wasn’t a dream, she’s in the middle of the road. Brakes screech and screech and screech and Cecily nearly drops Anita, and  _ fucking hell  _ fuck how can she how how how how how how how -  _ dead.  _ They proclaim Beth dead at the scene and Cecily can’t see, she can’t see anymore, she doesn’t want to. Beth is dead. Beth is dead.  _ Your children are the only thing that’ll outlive you.  _ Henry comes around with a bunch of flowers and she only has the energy to make a bad swipe at him before she falls into a bottomless sleep again, and when she wakes, each time she hopes she is dead, because nothing,  _ nothing  _ can ever get better, she knows it. John says she must go to the funeral and she faints. The coffin had to be specially made. Cecily can’t breathe.

 

And that Christmas, that Christmas is the loneliest Cecily has ever had, and not even Anita can cheer her, nobody can cheer her up. She leaves her baby girl in the arms of her father and lets herself fall to unconsciousness again, pouring the liquor down her throat until she throws up and soaking in her own vomit because fucking hell, she can’t breathe and honestly, she doesn’t want to, and then it’s New Years and the bells are ringing and she hates herself even more because she never wanted to see another year without both of her girls in it. And she failed.

 

**2009**

Miserable, so miserable. John crawls into bed next to her and she stares at him with unforgiving eyes. “Never fucking touch me again,” not because she doesn’t crave touch from somebody,  _ anybody  _ but because she feels she doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve to be held or stroked or kissed. She’s happy to spend her days dozing and dazing on the couch, eyes unseeing as soap operas play out on the screen. One day a little girl dies and her mother mourns by her grave, and Cecily retches onto the floor until she can’t breathe. Scarred hands smash the television screen and the glass embeds itself in her thin fingers. Somehow she ends up wrapped in a blanket at the doctors and stands on the scale, severely underweight, and she doesn’t care because god fucking dammit she wants to die. 

 

In March, Elizabeth has a beautiful daughter, Mary, and Cecily paces the ward, refusing to go in. She doesn’t want to see a little baby just like the one she lost, she refuses and instead sits outside, trying not to cry. Little Arthur is not so little anymore and buys her a soda from the nearest vending machine, thrusting it into her hands. “Father said you like drinks,” he says, with an innocent little face, peeking through long lashes and she hugs him, noticing how he seems all skin and bones too and that only makes the embrace last longer. 

 

Henry comes out, Henry Tudor, and his hair has been kissed with a few more silver locks and he announces that Elizabeth is recovering well from the birth, and Arthur runs up and wraps his arms around his Father, asking if he can see his baby sister yet and if he’s heard anything from Margot and Henry, who are being babysat by Henry’s mother, Cecily’s godmother Margaret Beaufort who god forbid would stay in England and let her son wriggle out of her reach. Henry soothes his son and then come and plops down next to Cecily, emphasising how kind his son is and how proud of him he is, and then when Arthur toddles out of earshot he wraps a kind, brotherly  _ too brotherly  _ arm around her shoulders.

“How are you fairing?”

 

Cecily remembers his flowers, a bouquet of red and white roses because  _ fucking hell  _ he had to make everything about the fucking Tudors and their legacy, and she wants to scream at him that he’s a self centred prick but she can’t, her vocal cords feel like they’ve snapped so she doesn’t say anything at all, freezing him out with awkwardness until his arm drops away. 

“Remember when you tried to fuck me?” she says instead, trying to mess with him, because despite everything that happened in the aftermath she recalls it as clear as a bell, despite the masks of grief overwhelming her. 

 

Henry shifts, he doesn’t say anything but there’s a small jerk of his head and she thinks -  _ no, he was too wasted. He thought I was Elizabeth.  _ Cecily doesn’t know if that was the answer she wanted or not so she doesn’t reply, closing her eyes tight as soft cries break through the wall and when she looks around again, Henry is gone, gone away and little Arthur replaces him, taking his seat. “Aunty Cecily,” he says, in his best grown-up voice, and god fucking dammit she killed his cousin, she killed his baby cousin. “Can I help you?” Her eyes are on fire, fire fire fire in the hole and he plods back later with another can of soft drink that doesn’t touch the sides of her throat. 

 

“You’re a good kid,” she chokes out, and chooses not to say anything else because the tears are too much. 

 

Another baby, so many  _ fucking babies  _ and why do they all have to come now, why are they all such horrible fucking reminders of what she lost? In April, Maggie Pole pops out another son, Art, and June gets Anne with her first baby, Tom, named for his dad. Cecily can’t take it and flees, for a month, leaves John with their little daughter and shows up at her godmother’s door, at Margaret Beaufort’s door. She’s a stern, strict woman but agrees to let Cecily in and lets her sit down for a cup of tea, just listening as Cecily spoke and spoke and spoke. Naturally, she reminds Cecily that it is all God’s will, and for a few moments the younger girl thinks she would’ve got as much comfort from calling Bridget, the wannabe nun, but then Margaret hugs her and reminds her how lucky she was to have two children in the first place, and makes the guest room comfortable and for the rest of the time Cecily is there, they share a love of old British soaps and continually being groaned at for their eating preferences (Margaret is vegan, refuses to hurt any living thing, but Cecily can stomach being vegetarian because  _ fuck  _ if she’s giving up cheese!). 

 

One day, they talk about their sins and Cecily confesses to lust, lust for someone she shouldn’t want and the words fall out of her mouth before she can think, but  _ has Margaret ever done the same?  _ And her virtuous godmother gives a nod but no other indication, and then declares that they really ought to go to church. Cecily isn’t that religious but follows along anyway, thankful for the refuge and hoping her husband will not loathe her upon her return. And he doesn’t.

 

John Welles was a military man, in days long long  _ long  _ gone by, and when they married he told her he felt it was his duty, he never wanted to let some poor girl run around, desperately alone and afraid and without help. She introduced herself by sobbing at a bar, because she didn’t have enough money for another drink despite being a York, and she was too proud and stubborn to ask anyone so he just bought her one without asking. She stared at him a long time before sipping and upon her finishing the drink, he confessed he knew her godmother. Both of them wanted company and it seemed to all work out, somehow, and when she comes home again he just seems glad for the company. Anita has missed her, and bursts into tears when her mummy stumbles through the door and Cecily’s heart is drenched in guilt, but again she locks eyes with John. “I’d be dead if I didn’t go,” she says firmly, scooping her daughter up, trusting herself for the first time in months. 

 

**2010**

Now Anita walks and talks and giggles, but cold tremors run through Cecily on the girl’s first day of kindergarten and in the end, John has to pry her fingers away from her little daughter, who wears cute little boots and a stripy shirt. Cecily is frozen, frozen as her daughter happily bounces off into the classroom and the teacher welcomes her, attaching a nametag to her chest and  _ fuck fuck  _ that should’ve been Beth, why didn’t Beth ever get to do that? Cecily protests and nearly runs inside, wanting to scream  _ she’s not ready  _ but in truth, it’s Cecily that isn’t ready and not even a long sip of tea can help that, nothing helps. So she turns to alcohol. Rocks up at the Hampshire Building at quarter past one with as much liquor as she can carry and bangs her fist on the front desk, demanding she see her brother-in-law. 

 

Mr Tudor is in a meeting, they tell her, cause now he isn’t Henry but he’s  _ Mr Tudor,  _ all refined and fancy and perfect. So she waits and taps her feet, feeling like an idiot in sweatpants and some fucking horrible graphic tee whilst important businesspeople walk past, and at one point she drops a bottle of champagne and it smashes all over the floor and she can’t be fucking bothered to clean it up, or get anyone else to, so she swishes the green glass around with the point of her shoes. And then, Henry - no, Mr Tudor - emerges, with more grey streaks in his hair and more lines across his forehead, in some slimming black suit.

 

“Mrs Welles,” he greets her, and she cocks her head to one side,  _ what the fuck,  _ because since when has she been  _ Mrs Welles?  _ The only people to call her that are idiots who call her on the phone. 

“Beer?” she offers. “Whiskey? I’ve got a selection. Whole fucking shop, really.”

He hesitates, she spots it in an instant, and the mask slips for a fraction of a second.

“This isn’t an appropriate time.”   
“But is it a good time?” And, okay, she’ll admit she’s had probably one too many glasses and that’s why she caught a taxi instead of driving but - she can’t think about her daughter, that’ll choke her and this seems the best option, Henry is the only one who can outdrink her. But Mr Tudor, Mr Tudor, she doesn’t know about him. 

 

And Mr Tudor, Mr Tudor, he’s back, pointing out the puddle on the ground and her recklessness and shouldn’t she really be at home? York girls don’t cry, so instead she dumps her two hundred dollars worth of bile-inducing liquid and storms off in a rage. She gets home and combs out her hair and some of the golden locks are starting to fall out. Cecily stares at her reflection and fucking hell, is this normal? She’s not quite twenty-eight.

 

Work is tiresome and sometimes she doesn’t even show up, and no matter how many times  _ Mr fucking Tudor  _ calls her and tells her that really, it’s quite unacceptable she doesn’t listen she can’t listen and instead cradles her newest baby at home, which is whatever bottle she’s bought that day and soon enough she doesn’t feel anything at all, let alone worry when Anita gets dropped off to kindy. Those drunken stupors are just fine, thank you very much, and in July she discovers the wonders of cigarettes and they become addicting, too, and she can’t stop drinking and smoking even if she  _ wants  _ to which she doesn’t, because there’s no anesthetic for life.

 

Anita gets sick and, what the fuck, what the fuck does it matter Cecily’s already killed one baby what would it matter if she kills another? Anita has asthma now, but Cecily can’t stop smoking and John only stares at her, and she can see he’s crying but there’s not a drop of guilt left inside her, there isn’t a drop of anything and she stopped looking in the mirror long ago, too much of her hair has fallen out.

 

She doesn’t even go to her sister’s wedding, no matter how much Catherine begs, because it just doesn’t matter at all. Cecily blows lightly on her knuckles and waits for some kind of saviour to appear, but nobody does. Mr Tudor sacks her from her job. John holds her every night until she stops getting out of bed, and the room smells like tobacco and then, finally, he moves to the guest room. Whenever she can get up for dinner he looks at her with such sad eyes, like a lost puppy and god knows it doesn’t help, not even a tiny bit. 

 

**2011**

One day she doesn’t wake up, and she doesn’t wake up the next day either, and suddenly John’s dragged a home doctor in who diagnoses her with too many things to count. John wraps a nightgown around her and suddenly there’s bright light, bright bright light and they tell her she’s going to a safer place, but it’s not, because the paparazzi are there, flashing flashing flashing lights, interviews, so much noise and her mouth is dry  _ where the fuck is the booze?  _ And John tells her that he and Anita care for her very much - not love, the word love isn’t mentioned - and then waves her goodbye, and she stumbles inside, blinking. 

 

_ That York girl,  _ the paper reads a few weeks later,  _ has fallen.  _


	2. escape the cage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She can't accept this, she can't.

**2011**

There’s a lot of time for thinking, here. She thinks about Beth. And what it’s like to be dead. If Anita misses her like she did when Cecily spirited away to Margaret Beaufort’s for a month. She wonders if her brothers are alive. What kind of monsters decided to dress up those poor kids, like Perkin Warbeck, and parade them as one of the dead York brothers for money. If those people knew that they broke her mother’s heart each time they turned in a lookalike. With a reward so great, they said in defence, who wouldn’t?

 

They wean her off alcohol, off cigarettes as if she’s a baby being weaned off milk and she doesn’t care for that kind of bullshit, but everything else is so goddamn fucking  _ boring  _ that she goes along with it. Even the shots in her arm stop hurting after a while. 

 

“We’re releasing you today, Mrs Welles,” some nurse tells her cheerfully, and by now she’s learnt to flick up her mouth into a smile so they leave her be. Sometimes her body begs for alcohol in the middle of the night. Cecily thinks if she ever drinks again, she’ll never ever stop.

 

Anita cries and clings to her, later, and John kisses her forehead and promises her that everything will be alright. They go home, and Anita has a small menagerie of drawings to wave in her face and she traces each one with her fingertips. They’re just stupid scribbles, not pieces of art but at night she wakes to go and find them and holds the little papers close to her chest. Maybe if she always holds them she’ll never have to let Anita go. 

 

It’s a month, probably, before she’s allowed any visitors at home and it’s just Elizabeth and Henry, the children are being babysat by that  _ angel  _ Anne Cromer, who Cecily only remembers fondly. Elizabeth brings her a bouquet of red roses and a pretty new vase, and plumps them up on the little coffee table. “Now, mind you don’t smash it,” she jokes, but Cecily finds her bottom lip quivering and Elizabeth falls silent, instead pulling precious little Anita into her lap and asking her what she’s been up to.

 

Cecily tries to meet Henry’s eye but he isn’t here, it’s just Mr Tudor. He talks of his latest business adventures and how much the country has managed to expand, and Arthur’s set up to be the captain of his primary school. Mr Tudor doesn’t pay Cecily any mind at all, he doesn’t care, and so she trips and stumbles until she’s away from him, making John cast her worried looks. She knows where she’s going, though, and for once it isn’t an attempt to break into the liquor cabinet like she’s fifteen again. No. This time it’s to Anita’s room.

 

Elizabeth sits on the floor, playing dolls with her, and Cecily files in silent, sitting cross-legged in the corner. Elizabeth expertly catches Anita’s attention and points her towards her mother. Cecily’s heart races now. This little girl, with such York gold hair, toddles over and stretches her arm out. A doll sits between her chubby fingers and Cecily smiles, for once, for the first time in an age, and takes it. Anita laughs, and it ripples through the room. If York girls cried, Cecily would bawl now. But they don’t. So she doesn’t.

 

And then her little girl is turning four, and they’ve crowded the family around in the massive function room in the Hampshire Building. Catherine whips up a tremendous cake and Anne sings a beautiful rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’, and maybe talks a little  _ too  _ much about her newest record signing and how she’s releasing an album next year, and, okay, Mary starts screaming midway through, and there’s a photographer hunting for the perfect shots to advertise the room, but Anita’s face is lit up. The little girl beams and kisses Cecily’s cheek, and John carefully cuts the cake into slices. A cheer rises up in the room and maybe, maybe for once, Cecily is actually truly happy. Anita rips into her presents with fervour and runs around the room, thanking everyone as her cousins chase her around. Margot overuses the photobooth and breaks it, but that doesn’t really matter in the end. Anita is happy, and Cecily is high on life, for the first time in a decade or more.

 

**2012**

She wakes up on the couch on New Year’s Day, her little daughter clinging to her, fast asleep. Dark eyelashes kiss her cheeks and Cecily runs her fingers through the golden locks. Cecily’s don’t match Anita’s anymore, she’s not quite thirty and is going prematurely grey. The television is blaring, and Elizabeth only gets name-dropped a hundred times because they’re all wearing her new fashion label,  _ Pink Rose,  _ and the Bank of Dragons is a sponsor of last night’s fireworks.

 

It’s a bright Australian summer, and Cecily and John tow Anita along to beaches, parks, anything that makes them happy. Cecily becomes accustomed to lounging on a towel with a broad-brimmed sunhat, with sunscreen and Anita’s asthma puffer clipped to her canvas bag. Anne hosts a concert in mid-May, belting out her latest tunes and someone’s actually filming, it’s going to go on a DVD and there’s press there, too. There’s no fear coursing through her veins when a reporter approaches and she actually lifts Anita up onto her hip for the photo. “Of course I’m proud of my sister,” Cecily answers smoothly. “We York girls stay together, don’t you know?” And that’s the headline for the next day, covering the story of their triumphs.  _ ‘Even after so much tragedy - their father’s early death, their brothers’ disappearance, the legal battles over the family company and inheritance and their mother’s many controversies as a star, these famous sisters seem to always band together, and they’ve begun welcoming the next generation.’ _

 

“I love you very very much, Anita,” Cecily murmurs one February morning, hugging her daughter closer. “Are you ready for preschool today?” Yes, okay, she’s becoming a stay-at-home mother since her discharge, but is there anything wrong with that and is she really to blame? She’s in no state to work, the doctors  _ still  _ say that. Anita is happy with it, besides. Each morning she lifts her fat arms up for her mother to scoop her up and carry her around the house. She runs to Cecily after preschool, excitedly exclaiming about all of her friends and toys and what her teachers taught her today.  _ I wonder if she’ll love real school, hmm,  _ Cecily muses.

 

Her daughter is happy, her little daughter is so happy as she bubbles into school and Cecily’s mind is somewhat at ease. She calls into the Hampshire Building to do some office-y odd jobs. Mainly photocopying, and she gets stuck on the third floor for an hour or so, ritualistically copying out endless spreadsheets until the whole area falls silent. Mr Tudor has arrived, in his pinstripe suit and long beard. Cecily wants to laugh at him. It’s getting longer and falling a little waywardly around his ears. It’s so  _ stupid.  _ Her drinking buddy seems to be acting his age, just as she is. That’s odd too. 

 

“Cecily,” he says, and thank  _ fuck  _ it’s not Mrs Welles because she’s a York, really, she always has been. “Can I see you for a minute?” And she shrugs, wishing she was dealing with Henry and not Mr Tudor but follows him up to his office, anyway. It’s rather bland, with white walls, but there’s a happy picture of him and his family, framed on his desk. They’re all smiling. 

“What do you want?” Cecily demands, folding her arms across her chest, cause really, if he offers her a permanent position she’s going to say  _ fuck him  _ and turn it up in his face. That hospital might’ve fixed her substance issues but the anger never really stops, with Cecily.

 

To her surprise, something tumbles out of his mouth about Elizabeth, and Margot, ever the problem child and she  _ blinks.  _ That’s all she can do,  _ blink  _ at him. It’s Henry behind the desk, not Mr Tudor and her heart is fighting between soaring and plummeting. She’s  _ missed  _ him, that fucker.

“You’re asking  _ me  _ for parenting advice?” Cecily spits finally. “ _ Relationship  _ advice? Fuck, Henry, have you ever met me?” He presses his lips together in a fine line, eyes avoiding her. She tries hard to catch them. All the blue has,  _ faded,  _ really, and she wonders how stressed he’s been. His mother spent his whole life preparing him for this business and for everything he does now, but there’s no classes you can take that actually  _ work  _ to deal with being a good spouse, a good parent. Cecily knows in her heart of hearts that she’s neither. 

 

Too many breaths pass. “Don’t cheat,” she says hesitantly. “Don’t lie. Don’t argue. Don’t dominate. Don’t be wrong. Don’t be right all the time. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, never ever lose your temper. Don’t take your eyes off them for a minute, but don’t take your eyes off the prize either. Be perfect.” Cecily remembers the last time Beth ever looked at her, with big babyish wide eyes, a tiny rosebud mouth. She remembers the last time John kissed her, and tenderly pulled away and shook his head.  _ You don’t love me,  _ he’d said, even though it wasn’t true. Cecily  _ did,  _ on some level, but there wasn’t enough of her heart left to love anyone fully. It had been crumbling since her father’s death. Before then, even. It had began to crumble when her mother pulled her and Elizabeth close to her.  _ Your father is sleeping around,  _ she’d said bluntly. 

 

“How am I supposed to be perfect?” Henry asks, eyebrows knitting. He’s not pleading or begging but desperation still hangs in the air, in fact, he reeks of it. Cecily can only give him a small shake of her head.

“You can’t.” Her voice breaks. “I learnt the hard way.”

 

The desk is feeble, she notices quickly. Hardly a barrier at all. Lips meet, together, and it’s a kind of struggle or battle and she feels like she’s going to be sick, there’s bound to be cameras in here somewhere. Henry’s hands tug at her and then she’s sitting upright, legs spread. Sharp edges of the table dig into her thighs. His lips caress her neck -  _ oh _ ,  _ fuck -  _ and then his fingers are pushing her skirt upwards, and they have to be quick,  _ quick,  _ and - 

“Hello?” Her hand was on the phone as soon as it started to ring. Only one number has that tone. “What’s wrong?”

 

She’s shaking, too hard too much too much too much  _ it’s too fucking much!  _ Her arms stretch out and Henry is frozen at an arm’s length.

Cecily speaks slowly. Clear. “Did you kill my brothers?” Crystal. “Or do you know who did?”

He exhales. His eyes are obsidian. 

 

An age passes. “I’m not a murderer.”

And Cecily, well. Cecily explodes.

“That’s not a  _ no!”  _ She screams, pushing herself off the desk, trying to hit him, face contorting, scrunching. She can’t breathe. Not a no. He killed them he must’ve he  _ must have.  _ Spasms tear through her body.  _ And and and  _ she has to go to the fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking preschool! “That’s not a  _ no!”  _ It takes every inch of self-control she’s learnt not to smash everything in sight. Adrenalin pumps through her veins. “If you did, just tell me! Then we’ll be the same! Equals!” And her hand is diving into her bag, and fingers close around the little object. She throws, and the asthma puffer lands at Henry’s feet. Cecily bursts towards him, until they’re face-to-face and her breath is on his cheeks. “Because I’ve killed two children too. My children.”

 

York girls don’t cry, but the tears don’t stop flowing as she drives to see Anita’s body.

 

She goes to the funeral this time. John holds her hand. Lines of grief, of loss, are etched onto his aged face. Arthur makes a speech about his cousin, who was dearly loved and will be dearly missed.  _ Was. Was. Was.  _ Cecily goes to the hairdressers the next day and gets her gold-silver hair dyed black, black as night. She doesn’t recognise herself when she looks in the mirror and it’s a relief. 

 

She goes back to work, at some point, in the year, just as a clerk not a manager. Cecily becomes notorious for taking too-long coffee breaks and refusing to serve anyone with little kids, and her coworkers learn to loathe her. Mr Tudor sends her paychecks but Henry insists on keeping her on, and doesn’t sack her no matter how many complaints people put in. “Simple nepotism,” one person mutters, glaring at her darkly. Cecily rolls her eyes.  _ As if you wouldn’t do the same.  _

 

Her birthday falls late in the year, and sadly in Australia it’s a hot, sweaty, muggy affair. Hair sticks to her forehead as Elizabeth lights candles in the shape of a ‘3’ and an ‘0’.  _ My daughters are meant to be here,  _ and she insists on setting out plates for the pair of them, makes Elizabeth cut two spare slices of cake and put them on the soggy paper plates. Her godmother, Margaret Beaufort, there partially in her relation to Cecily and partially as Elizabeth’s mother-in-law, gives her a small, red, leather-covered bible as a gift. Cecily’s never been religious but she takes it with thanks, knowing the older woman has always found comfort in it. Maybe ten years ago she would’ve released one of her sharp snaps, or thought it inconsiderate. Now she just clasps it betweens her hands and closes her eyes. Hopefully the party will end soon.

 

**2013**

It’s not - easier, this time, that’s not the word, but it’s familiar in a kind of haunting way. She’s gone through the motions before and it’s easier to fall out of focus when she finally, a year later, finally drags herself to donate all the toys and little clothes. It’s not easy. But she doesn’t need alcohol this time, reality is sober enough for her and she deals with it, in some way, shape or form.

“John,” she says one morning, facing the blank screen of the television. “Why did our daughters die?” And he doesn’t answer, he just continues making coffee. Tears don’t roll down her cheeks but her nails dig so deep into her palms that they bleed. 

 

They’re a solemn pair. They’ve lost a daughter before, yes, but they haven’t been childless since 2005. Sometimes, the TV flicks itself on for scheduled viewing of those shitty children’s shows that Anita loved and Cecily is rooted to the spot, watching the screen. New episodes come on, ones her daughters will never see. There are other children in the world, it seems, that like these shows too. It feels like a viper to her heart.

 

John turns fifty, this year, in March and Cecily manages to throw a half-hearted party, and they gather around, singing ‘Happy Birthday’. Henry can only afford to throw her a half-smile before he has to go home, because Mary is severely overtired, and the rest follow suit. Cecily slinks into the couch beside him and kisses his cheek, asking what he wants. Deep violet bags fall beneath his eyes, looking so much older than his half-century, and he shakes his head. “I want our daughters,” he says quietly. 

 

On occasion, Cecily can last days without saying anything other than, “how much would that be, ma’am, sir?”, “may i have your account name?” and “and good day to you, miss, mister,”. John starts getting sent home earlier from work, jokes that he’s getting too grey for them, but there’s old military wounds playing up. He’s been medicated for years but the pain continues, and through the nights, his breathing grows laborious. Of course she worries. She sits at the kitchen bench and traces the marble top with her long, peach nails. She won’t afford the house if he dies too. She’ll have to live with one of her sisters. She’s violently sick at the thought.

 

“I think they’re going to lay me off, Cece,” John announces one day, dumping his coat in their closet. She rubs her eyes, interest aroused by the use of her pet name. “My head’s all clouded and the like.” He strips down to plaid boxers, revealing the soft down of grey hair over his stomach and chest, stretch marks spreading across his enlarged belly.  _ I’m married to an old man,  _ she thinks,  _ and I too am old.  _

 

For the first time in years, he takes her in his arms and they curl up together afterwards, panting a bit. Cecily doesn’t desire him so much as she desires  _ comfort,  _ and wants to comfort him. John is a very different man to the one who has so often pranced behind her eyelids, the man who is out of reach forever. John is John who could best be described as dutiful, even though his duties seem to be delegated by a moral compass and not by any higher power.

 

“Don’t fucking die on me,” she whispers afterwards, a little tearful, clutching his big arms. 

 

They fall into a routine, somehow, one they both simultaneously loathe and crave. He gets home earlier than Cecily, so John takes up cooking and is actually pretty damn good at it, and he always has some hearty meal for Cecily when she comes home and they both dig into it, eating with fervour each night before they cuddle up together on the couch to watch the news. It’s really fucking  _ domestic,  _ for Cecily, and the sobriety of her life sometimes consumes her, worries her, but it’s best to just try to get used to it. 

 

“Sounds like you’ve grown up, Cecily,” drily comments her youngest sister, Bridget, from the other side of the phone line. Talking makes Cecily miss England even more, she hasn’t visited in years and she really ought to. Not that her mother’s grave would ever run out of flowers atop it, for Bridget claims she takes a new bouquet down at dawn, every day, but just to see it all again. Now more than ever do those years feel oddly detached from her; when the memories flood back, it’s not short of a movie. She takes her pills every day and keeps the thoughts away, and a drop of alcohol hasn’t touched her tongue in nearly two years. 

 

In May, she organises a trip and stays with her sister at her ‘humble home’, which is more of a cottage embellished with more religious icons than Cecily has ever seen in her life. It’s strange to be back in her childhood home, and Bridget drives her places, in a grumbling old car. That’s weird, too, she’s seen much less of Bridget than she should and hasn’t seen the girl since she was seventeen or so, and despite the guilt knotting in her chest, Bridget shrugs and says all is forgiven, that it doesn’t really matter anyway. All the sisters have that York girl look, with gold hair, even Cecily’s roots are growing out in that colour, albeit streaked with grey. They sit at a little restaurant and Bridget pokes light fun at her, eyes dancing. “I’ve missed you,” Cecily confesses, and Bridget just nods, offering half of her sandwich. 

 

She borrows the rusty car, and just drives, not knowing where she’s going but recognising where she ends up.  _ Fuck that,  _ York girls do cry and she kneels in front of her parents’ headstones and lets herself sob, sob for her losses and sob for all the times she refused to cry, and maybe, for longer than she’d like to admit, wonders if they really loved each other. She loves John, she can feel that now, but she’s still not sure in what way. She doesn’t know how long she has to figure it out either. She doesn’t know if it even matters.

 

She ends up at the place where she last saw her brothers. Uncle Richard’s old house has been abandoned, it’s falling down, the walls are rotting through. Nobody wanted to come visit after the boys disappeared. Nobody would buy it. Two plaques are attached to the fence.  _ ‘The Towers Residence’,  _ the first, older one reads.  _ ‘Last known position of Edward and Richard York. Long Live the Princes in the Tower.’  _ Their nickname. Crumbling flowers have been left, leaning against the black gate. Dead petals litter the old driveway. “I love you,” she tells the plaque solemnly, thinking maybe, somewhere it can beam the message to her brothers. Both dead, probably, definitely. 

 

She ends up at a pub she hasn’t seen in years. There’s no faking of age, now, nobody could mistake her for a teenager but she’s careful not to order any liquor, she can’t control what will happen if she does. Old men linger in the corner, in their late fifties, and Cecily swallows her fear and marches up to them. 

 

“Do you know a Ralph Scrope?” she asks, and despite herself, her voice trembles. They all echo each other with drunken laughs, bobbing Adam’s apples and she repeats the question. One shrugs.   
“Oh, ‘on, ‘e ran off and drowned in a river a bazillion years ago.” He waves a hand airily. “Don’t bo’er with ‘im, love, we’re all good as ‘im or better.”

“Better, I’d say,” chuckled one of the others. She left as quickly as she could, shivering. Ralph Scrope was someone she didn’t miss. She hadn’t expected him to be dead, though. 

 

Too soon, Bridget is driving her to the airport. They pass a million billboards on the way, one advertising Howard Cruises, another advertising Pink Rose and a third telling the world to prepare for Anne Howard’s consort. Bridget laughs. “I can never get rid of you sisters,” she says, shaking her head. “Maybe Catherine, but she calls five times a week or more, updating me on her little brood.”

“She’s trying to get pregnant again,” Cecily says, idly. Bridget bows her head. The rest of the trip passes in near-silence.

 

When she gets home, John welcomes her with open arms, but he’s changed. His bones are skinnier, brittler and he sleeps longer at night. Every hour she starts grabbing his hand, pressing her fingers against his wrist. “I’m still here, Cece,” he laughs, every time, but her head still spins.  _ I thought Anita was still there, too. And Beth. And Mother. And they weren’t; I didn’t pay close enough attention.  _ He’s in hospital twice in a week and she paces up and down the hall, bleary eyed, wishing an angel would come to her with liquor, but  _ no,  _ she’s not supposed to crave it anymore. The doctors can’t say what it is; he’s just old, they think, worn out. That doesn’t stop anger coming from somewhere and leading her to scream at them, shrieking. “You’re fucking doctors!” She yells, feeling twenty again. “You should have a fucking clue!” John kisses her forehead and says it’ll be alright, he’ll be alright, there’s no need to feel upset but she doesn’t sleep that night. Her waking thoughts are too vivid. 

 

The rest of the week passes in accompaniment to a funeral march. Cecily calls in sick to work on Thursday and Friday and lies with him. “You can’t be dying,” she protests. “You’re too young.” A photo of herself that hangs on the wall is laughing hysterically, since when did Cecily call a man in his fifties  _ young?  _ But he has to be, she can’t accept this, she can’t. Not John too. She insists on whipping out her computer and wheels him around in the chair the hospital gave them, on account of his legs failing. Cecily takes him to the kitchen and googles cooking tutorials, combining them with his advice when he manages to stay awake, and learns frantically how to make his favourite meals. She burns them, lots, the first few times ( _ “Fucking oven, who the fuck invented this?”) _ but she eventually gets it right and he seems to be grateful, at least for the sentiment.

 

It’s a freezing Saturday morning, and she refuses to open her eyes, because she already knows what’s happened. Cecily has always had warm blood but it runs cold, like she’s hugging a giant icicle. If she doesn’t open her eyes, it hasn’t happened, really, she can deny it, but eventually she has to confront it. She kisses John’s lips, cold lips, and drags herself out of bed, tears frozen on her cheeks. Cecily makes one of the worst phone calls of her life and then climbs back into bed, crying. “I love you,” she says, earnestly. “I don’t know if I ever told you that.” It’s too late if she didn’t. 

 

Her grief is..subdued, this time, and she manages to wander through daily life. There’s a funeral a week later and she rocks back and forth that night, contemplates drinking but manages to restrain herself. She only eats his favourite meals for a month until she admits defeat, in that she can’t quite stomach all the foods he loved. In September, the sun is starting to peek out again and a solicitor comes and knocks on her door, tells her she hasn’t enough money to keep living here. In another month, it’s gone, and she’s renting out a lonely apartment in the Hampshire Building. Cecily misses that house like no other, it was John’s. It should’ve been her daughters’, too, someday, and their children’s and their children’s. Her godmother pops around and shakes her head;  _ God works in mysterious ways.  _ Cecily numbly agrees. Takes flowers to all of their graves’ every week. Her hair goes greyer.  _ Fuck,  _ she thinks.  _ I’m thirty-one.  _

 

Someone at work calls her ‘Cece’ and she loses her job, again, but luckily no charges are pressed. That guy,  _ fucking newbie,  _ has a broken arm.

 

Her cousin, Maggie Pole, calls her hysterically in late November, hiccoughing. “Eddie killed himself! In my bathroom!” As if the second one is more of a travesty than the first. It’s a tiny funeral, with rumours woven around like a spiderweb.  _ Henry made him do it, they were working together on something and he turned, said something Henry didn’t like.  _ Elizabeth tries to hold her head high like their mother always did, but fails miserably in that her lips are coated in the slick saliva of someone trying not to cry. Henry doesn’t come. He’s Mr Tudor now, and he has a work thing on. “He’s not a saint,” she hisses at her sister’s back, but when the elder girl whips her head around, perfect blue eyes wide, Cecily doesn’t bother to repeat herself. She just retreats into the shadows.

 

Christmas is frustratingly somber. Anne’s away on tour and the Howards don’t bother to come, Catherine tries to break the ice by announcing yet another pregnancy. Arthur’s hands shake uncontrollably through dinner and Mr Tudor sends him death glares, as if daring the fourteen-year-old to be abnormal. Cecily catches Margot outside, all of eleven,  _ fuck,  _ attempting to puff on a cigarette and Cecily snatches it away, grounding it into the pavement with her heel. Margot protests and Cecily almost wants to slap her to shut her up. “I got addicted too, and they chucked me in the loony bin for it, kid. Not a good place. Kills you earlier.” Margot scoffs and storms back inside, and Cecily couldn’t care less. At least she didn’t ask the girl for a drag. It’s an improvement.

 

**2014**

The apartment is crushing her, suffocating her and it’s not a hard decision, to move. England is too far and too filled so she looks at Sydney, instead, where fate nearly put her a decade earlier, and sets herself up with a shitty house in the suburbs somewhere, a place she doesn’t really like but at least it’s not  _ here.  _ She buys plastic flowers and twines them around the headstones, a ring of pink for Beth, blue for Anita and sunflowers, bright yellow, cover John’s grave, weaved together. The flight is astonishingly short.

 

In retrospect, her goodbyes weren’t hard. Kisses for all her sisters, hugs for their children and awkward cheek-rubs with her brother-in-laws. Henry was there, at the goodbye party, for some reason, and he invited her into another room, tried to make small talk, big talk, any kind of talk and she just stared, that was maybe the worst part about it, just staring at him and trying not to cry. His weak-arse attempt at a kiss wasn’t even too bad. Cecily found it easy to shove him in the chest.

 

“Fuck off,” she said lightly, and walked out, not missing him, with no tingling lips. Only later, on the drive out of central Sydney into the ‘burbs, does she think about what could’ve happened if she was somewhere else the day she found out about Anita. If the call had come two minutes later, what would’ve happened? Or if it was delayed by an hour?

  
_ It doesn’t matter,  _ she decides eventually, sitting on her front porch.  _ It really doesn’t fucking matter. What’s done is done. _ She tosses the newspaper into the trash. That doesn’t matter either. Even if the headline is,  _ ‘Those York Girls…’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for such a terrible ending. It could go on forever, and I didn't really know how to close it. I may come back and edit it in future. Thank you so much for reading!


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